The-test:

Imagine deciding to walk from Stockholm to Sydney. It’s a big decision. A long way to walk..

Imagine planing and organizing for more than a year before finally starting out. Moving out of your apartment, getting rid of all your stuff, leaving your job and telling anybody that would listen about your crazy ambitions. Then imagine discovering that you don’t like walking all day, your shoes are uncomfortable and the cart you built refuses to roll in anything that resembles a straight line!

🙂

Which is the reason I decided that a test-walk was in order. To test myself, the equipment and the idea as a whole.

During the summer of 2012 I walked from Stockholm to Åre and back again, covering almost 1800km in a little less than two months. Even through I walked through the wettest summer in more than 100 years, the-test was a great success and only reinforced my ambition to walk all the way to Sydney. More than ever before, I became convinced that it was a viable idea and, most importantly, it suited me.

I posted blog entries almost every day during the-test and they are still available here on the site. The cold statistics were:

Total walk days: 43

Total days: 53

Total distance: 1790km

Average distance per walk day: 41,63km

Total ascent: 24968m (decent is the same as I returned to the starting point).

Average speed: 4,85km/h

Total calories: 138537

Weight lost: 9kg (Take this with a grain of salt. I spent the last month eating as much as I could and gained at least 4kg which came of pretty easily during the first weeks. My weight was stable during the last 2 weeks and I had stopped losing any more weight).